The aim of this paper is, through linking the two relatively new concepts of ‘Emotional Intelligence’ and ‘Peace Journalism’, to demonstrate how media people and the general public, together, can influence the current media culture through an increased awareness about reporting styles, journalistic conventions, and the impact of media productions on populations in different contexts.

The term ‘Emotional Intelligence’ is usually associated with Daniel Goleman and his mid-1990 bestseller by the same name. Goleman promoted the idea of an ‘EQ’¹ (for emotional intelligence) as a prerequisite for effectively using one’s IQ. In Goleman’s understanding ‘EQ’ stands for the capacity for compassion, empathy, motivation, self-awareness, and to bringing energy back into flow within an individual. An intrinsic intelligence of the heart affects an individual’s decision making at the level of the brain and moves them towards a state of internal wellbeing.²

One of the relatively recent developments in the media world is the recognition of the traumatizing effects certain journalistic activities can have on the psyche of media people. The concept of Emotional Intelligence assists in exploring recent findings about PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and burnout from the areas of psychology, brain research and communication science in a professional media context.

Along with all military personnel, journalists and particularly war correspondents are increasingly considered at risk of being emotionally traumatized as a result of experiencing and witnessing emotionally challenging situations in the course of their work. At the same time media professionals are less likely to be trained in recognizing the effects of traumatization on themselves and when they need to seek help.

Anthony Feinstein, a Canadian psychiatrist, says that the denial of the reality around exposure to trauma and its likely psychological consequences may be "a necessary, albeit distorted prerequisite allowing war journalists to venture repeatedly into situations of grave physical danger".³ Feinstein says that many media professionals suffered in silence due to a macho culture where admitting to emotional stress was highly frowned upon, and that some journalists (who may not have been suitable for it) had become war reporters in the belief that this would give them a high media profile.

Jack Laurence, a correspondent with 30 years experience of working for American television networks, also conveys an impression of the attraction to high-risk situations: "The experience to a young reporter is thrilling. You must all know that…several things happen in one’s own psyche to enhance the experience."⁴ Hence, the Survival Guide for Journalists warns against "a macho culture and a competitive urge for danger" or an "adrenaline high"⁵, and reminds its readers that a journalist’s job is about telling, rather than "becoming", the story.⁶

A more emotionally intelligent approach to media work would include an assessment of media people’s potentially unconscious motivation for the choice of their profession, particularly where personal traumatization through working as a war correspondent may be, or become, an issue. Mariette Van der Merve says that journalists "must expect their own pain and trauma to be reactivated by the incidents they report. If they do not have such awareness and develop constructive coping strategies, they may slip into pathology with their own life scripts moving them into negative downward spirals".⁷

This requires a shift of the mainstream media consciousness towards a culture where such care and consideration towards journalists and other media people is considered a priority. Such an attitude will subsequently benefit its readers, viewers, listeners and those who they report on in the world.

Journalists regularly face many obstacles that would make it difficult to remain conscious of their emotional states most of the time. Frantic deadlines; constant pressure to compete with other papers, broadcasting agencies or colleagues and exposure to further traumatizing environments, all impact on individual journalists, the quality of their life and also their reporting. While the limitations imposed by the expectations of media corporations have a direct effect on journalistic quality, and an indirect impact on audiences, the called-for changes in media consciousness are unlikely to originate in the industry’s decision making bodies.

A new concept influencing global media coverage is presented through the defined distinction between a ‘war’ and ‘peace’ journalistic orientation. Either orientation influences the media, concerning, for example, whether newspaper or TV reporting practices tend to select news items according to their market-value on the day, or the degree to which they could improve the state of the world. One of the important recognized aspects in the new field of Peace Journalism is the need for journalists to familiarize themselves with conflict analysis tools for a more impact-conscious and responsible way of presenting world news in the media.

Annabel McGoldrick regards the attitude of some journalists who consider the consequences of their reporting as "coincidental and beyond their control"⁸ as untenable; she equates this attitude to that of a car company who tries to justify the damage that cars do to the environment in similar terms. McGoldrick estimates that journalism is about twenty years behind the efforts of the corporate world to introduce ethical business conduct in their field.

The consciousness of the presenter will have an impact on the viewer, as well as the viewed party. Irina Brezna strongly expresses her criticism of a Zurich studio director disrespectfully enjoying his sandwiches while editing footage from mass graves in Grozny.⁹ In the same vein, Brezna comments: "The naked backside of a corpse flashes around the world. It sums up the humiliation of a culture where exposure of certain body parts is taboo"¹⁰ , and where "the dead are more sacred than anything else".¹¹

Another point is the public’s responsibility regarding media issues. In a free market society, public demand for certain types of media productions does have an impact on what the media will produce. There is a two-way relationship between the public and the media, in that each party is in a position to have an impact on the other in terms of the contents and form of media productions. Neither party can hide entirely behind the other regarding the quality of media productions; an increased sense of responsibility on the part of the public around the demand for sensationalizing celebrity news or truth-distorting presentations of events will be reflected in a corresponding change in the style and content of future media productions.

Katherine Ramsland is very outspoken about this issue, to the degree of referring to "society’s complicity" in the uncritical response to violence portrayed in the media. She writes: …do we really wish to know our complicity?  Do we want to be shown that our desire for killers to be utterly savage is nearly as obscene as what he actually does to his victims?  That would mean looking at how we run in droves to films that depict such monsters, how we crave every gory detail the media feeds us, and how we applaud Hannibal Lecter’s cleverness in ripping off the face of an orderly to disguise himself with the skin.¹²

A change in awareness by all of the involved parties will influence the orientation of media producers’ regarding the content and quality of future broadcasts and publications. Change could be brought about if a sufficient number of journalists refused to expose themselves to life threatening or severely traumatizing situations for the sake of feeding an audience’s insatiable hunger for detailed depictions of human dramas and catastrophes. The public’s ‘right to know what is happening in the world’ may have to be put into perspective, particularly also in view of the consequences from certain media presentations on different under-age groups.

In many cases in the West, parents have largely lost control and often also any interest in the type and degree of their children’s media exposure, particularly when media productions via the internet, as well as computer games, are added to the list of ‘parenting-replacement’ tools. Extreme cases of constant exposure to inappropriate and violent media content, combined with a neglect of general parenting duties constitutes a modern, and increasingly frequent, form of child abuse. Teenagers or children, after turning on the TV or their computer for their favourite game, have been heard to make statements such as "I’m just bumping off these people for a while"¹³.

Such behaviour on the part of human beings who are at a precarious stage of developing and forming their personalities points to a manifest, but widely ignored, crisis in regard to parenting and the media. The potential long-term risks to society from such ‘normal’ lifestyles are practically not considered. Such concerns cannot be the media’s responsibility alone. An attitude of declaring the media guilty for the consequences of parental neglect betrays a lack of consciousness in society. The fruits of a society’s actual operating level of consciousness will be, certainly and reliably, reflected back by the media. This will be evident in what is reported on as well as in the collectively accepted style by which it is reported.

Research findings have shown that decisions arrived at through an intellectual process are often influenced by underlying emotional processes, that often remain outside of an individual’s consciousness. The aim is to bring these unconscious motivating forces into consciousness and introduce a more emotionally intelligent approach in the media profession through a more heart-focused orientation.

Doc Childre refers to findings, according to which the brain ‘obeys’ incoming messages from the heart, thus influencing a person’s behaviour. This research has also shown that the heart generates the strongest electromagnetic field produced by the body, and that a loving intention results in an exchange of electromagnetic energy with healing effects between individuals. Positive emotions such as love, care and appreciation have also been shown to increase the synchronization between the heart, brain and body within an individual.¹⁴ Attending to media people’s own intrinsic psychological needs will increasingly enable journalists to operate in an emotionally congruent way. In turn, this will impact on the way in which future media productions affect the state of an individual, a community, a nation, or the state of the world at large.

The strength of peace-journalism’s agenda lies in the recognition that the reporting of events comes with a personal responsibility for the impact that the style of reportage has on the people and circumstances that are being described.

From an emotional intelligence perspective, this constitutes an intra and inter-personally resourceful way of addressing today’s media challenges. The dilemma for correspondents in the West, who feel compelled to adhere to corporate demands on the one hand but wish to follow their own standard of ethics on the other hand, can only be overcome when a sufficient number of correspondents decide to follow their heart instead of aiming to outdo each other in fulfilling the expectations of media corporations, audiences, or governments.

Networking between like-minded peace-journalists, the development of new concepts regarding expectations of, and by, the media; the introduction of changes in journalism training and an official acknowledgement of a ‘duty of care’ to journalists are encouraging steps in a the right direction. Such awareness seems timely in an age of globalization where the benefits and shortcomings of any conduct tend to spread faster and with greater impact than ever before.

Perhaps the current in-vogue notion of the ‘CNN-effect’, referring to the media’s role in (selectively) attracting attention to certain conflict situations as opposed to others and therefore indirectly influencing the course and outcome of conflicts, could one day be replaced with something like a ‘PPR-effect’ (for ‘peace promoting reporting’) which would expose the presence, or the absence, of such corresponding attitudes in the reporting of international conflicts.

In this sense a media culture change towards a more emotionally intelligent, peace journalistic perspective is not so much an option, or a choice, but rather an urgent necessity in keeping with a vastly changed Zeitgeist, responding to, in Mark Brayne’s words, "an emotional dimension to politics and to journalism and the human condition in the twenty-first century".¹⁵

If those who work in the media raise their individual consciousness around their own and the media world’s strengths and shortcomings and if they develop a new sense of responsibility towards themselves, those they report on and those they report for, then they, together with audiences, have the capacity to create a media consciousness that promotes the spirit of the common good.

References

1. Goleman, Daniel (1997, p.14), Emotional Intelligence, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London

2. ibid.

5. A Survival Guide for Journalists (p.9), http://www.ifj.org/pdfs/safetyall.pdf.,

6. ibid.

10. ibid.

11. ibid.

13. personally experienced by the author

14. Childre, Doc and Martin, Howard (1999), The HeartMath Solution, p.10

Childre, Doc and Martin, Howard (1999), The HeartMath Solution, Harper San Francisco

Childre, Doc and Rozman, Deborah (2003), Transforming Anger, The HeartMath Solution for Letting Go of Rage, Frustration, and Irritation, Harper San Francisco

Galtung, Lynch, McGoldryck, (forthcoming in 2005), Reporting Conflict: An
Introduction to Peace Journalism, London: Pluto Press,

Goleman, Daniel (1997), Emotional Intelligence, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London

Goleman, Daniel (1998), Vital Lies, Simple Truths, The Psychology of Self-Deception, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London

Goleman, Daniel (1999), Working With Emotional Intelligence, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London

Knightley, Phillip,(2004), The First Casualty, The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth- Maker from the Crimea to Iraq, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

Lynch (2004), Sydney University Peace-Building Media Summer School Course Outline

Lynch, McGoldrick, (forthcoming in 2005), Reporting Conflict: An Introduction to
Peace Journalism, London: Pluto Press,

McArthur, Bruce and David (1997), The Intelligent Heart – Transform Your Life With the Laws of Love, A.R.E. Press, Virginia

McGoldrick/ Lynch (2004), Sydney University Peace-Building Media Summer School Course Outline

McGoldrick/Lynch (2001), What is Peace Journalism?
http://www.impacs.org/pdfs/what is.pdf. 

Perth, Candice (1999), Molecules of Emotion, The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine, Touchstone, New York

Steiner, Claude (1997 ), Achieving Emotional Literacy

Wate, Lothar (2004), Kommunikation und kommunikatives Handeln, Band 1, Der Mensch in seiner Umwelt, University Press, UMC, Potsdam

Zohar, Danah and Marshall, Ian (2001) SQ-Connecting With Our Spiritual Intelligence, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London.

Dr Gabriele Frohlich is a medical practitioner, psychotherapist, global consciousness coach with international experience, and has an MA in Peace and Conflict Studies. www.global-develop.com